Creating bright futures for Maine’s rural economies relies on collaboration of ideas

Communities throughout rural Maine are up against no shortage of challenges. Facing geographic isolation, aging and declining populations, paired with the loss of traditional manufacturing or mill jobs, it can be easy to feel pessimistic about the prospects of the state’s rural backbone.But pessimism was not the mood that filled a Cross Insurance Center conference room Friday, as a daylong discussion about the future of Maine’s rural economy stoked hope and advocated for a collaborative approach to revitalizing these rural communities. “What makes us Mainers is our collectivism,” Vaughan Woodruff, owner of Insource Renewables, said. “Our future is bright, and I just want to say to everyone in rural Maine, we’ve got this. We’ve got this.”